Every Day and Young Adult Literature
Kent Baxter
What is Young Adult (YA) literature?
“By young adult literature, we mean anything that readers between
the approximate ages of 12 and 18 choose to read (as opposed to
what they may be coerced to read for class assignments).” (Donelson
and Nilsen, Literature for Today’s Young Adults)
Problems with definition:
1. The segregation of publishing a 20th century phenomena. YA
section/category popularized in 1960s.
2. Young Adult novels written by adults.
3. Many books sold as YA read by adults.
55% of YA books purchased in 2012 were bought by adults between
18 and 44 years old, according to Bowker Market Research Study.
4. Many books now categorized as YA (or considered classics in the
genre) were originally published for adults.
Contexts for Every Day:
1.
The Coming of Age Story
2.
The Bildungsroman (“novel of formation”)
3.
The Postmodern Novel of Adolescence
General characteristics of literature about adolescence:
1. Protagonist is youth/adolescent/teen
2. Plot follows individual development/integration of
self and community
3. Physical/mental journey entails separation from
childhood
4. Knowledge of power relations and identity
construction
Individuation and identity formation:
“A pervasive sense of identity brings into gradual accord the variety
of changing self-images that have been experienced during
childhood […] and the role opportunities offering themselves to
young persons for selection and commitment. […] [A] lasting sense
of self cannot exist without a continuous experience of a conscious
“I,” which is the numinous center of existence.” (Erik Erikson, The Life
Cycle Completed)
Individuation and identity formation in Every Day:
1. Every day, A is forced to find the context that identifies the person
inhabited. So the plot itself is based upon the notion that identity is
contextual, which facilitates an examination of what constitutes
identity.
“I wake up. Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It’s not just
the body […] It’s the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to
grasp” (1).
“In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in
love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals. I know this is hard for
people to do, but I don’t understand why it’s so hard, when it’s so
obvious” (142).
Individuation and identity formation in Every Day:
2. If there is a “coming of age” in this text, central to it is when A falls
in love. A’s attempt to connect with Rhiannon is the foundation for
the identity A develops outside of the bodies inhabited every day. So
it is the connection with community that facilitates the individuation,
because community is central to the development of self identity.
“I am learning that a life isn’t real unless someone else knows its
reality. And I want my life to be real” (91).
“If you want to live within the definition of your own truth, you have
to choose to go through the initially painful and ultimately
comforting process of finding it” (253).
“Every person is a possibility. The hopeless romantics feel it most
acutely, but even for others, the only way to keep going is to see
every person as a possibility” (309).
Thoughts?